welcome back to "morning joe." time to talk about what we learned today. mika, what did you learn? >> at the washington press club foundation dinner last night, claire mccaskill -- >> she was great. >> point taken, although if she knew of my fight with food, she's be more sympathetic. >> oh, stop. pat? >> to shut up people, let us pray. >> let us pray. and we learned from tim geithner at that the economy may be turning around. willie geist? >> i learned that mike allen is not the only politico guy with a huge cover story written about him. patrick gavin, congratulations again on the "cat fancy" cover. i love cots. >> i guess he says the "time" magazine cover is coming up next month. what time is it? >> time for "the daily rundown" with chuck and savannah. >> we're not johnny come

latelies to this thing. >> the president will speak just blocks from wall street today to continue his push for financial reform. will they get the message? off the coast of louisiana this morning, the coast guard continuing a frantic search for 11 oil workers after that massive oil rig explosion. good morning. it's april 22nd, 2010. i'm savannah guthrie. >> i'm chuck todd. did you say it's dairt? it's my earth day, too. >> it's everyone's earth day. >> happy earth day. in just over an hour, president obama leaves for the heart of the financial industry, to wall street, offering what is essentially a closing argument for his vision on financial reform. he gave a preview of his speech during an interview yesterday with cnbc's john harwood. >> when things didn't go well and everything crashed, taxpayers were left footing the bill. i -- and i think the vast majority of americans -- think it is unacceptable to have a situation which, you know, tails you win and heads i lose. >> mike viqueira ask at the

white house for us this morning. mike, he leaves in about an hour. >> right. >> this thing is suddenly -- remember on monday and on sunday you were reporting, boy, it looked like we were in for a real fight. >> yeah. look at this. >> looks like the fight is over, right? >> reporter: everybody from chris dodd to richard shelby, his republican counterpart on the senate banking committee, coming out and singing kumbaya, we're making progress, and the democrats are talking about putting it on the floor in short order. the president said we're not johnny-come-latelys to this thing. you have to give credit where credit is due. two years ago cooper union the president came out and hit against wall street and what he called the epic of greed and insider dealings. now his financial reform bill about to take a big hurd until the senate. it passed the house back in december. there's within a fight in the senate in the past several weeks and republicans thought they would put up a stand against

what they saw as a $50 billion bailout fund. after all, the stated purpose of this legislation is to end too big to fail, to get taxpayers off the hook, to bailing out these big financial institutions that fail. privatizing the losses -- privatizing the gains and socializing the losses as they say here in washington during this debate. he will go to wall street today, insist on strong consumer protections, insist on transparency for derivatives and insist that too big to fail come to an end. chuck and savannah? >> mike viqueira at the white house for us this morning as the president gets ready to leave. thank you. >> by the way, savannah, a little nugget we saw reported this morning, bloomberg reporting about peter orszag, the budget director potentially on his way out, deciding to leave. it's one of those thankless jobs. budget directors only last about 18 months to two years. at first there was some denial that this is idle speculation, but we've both been hearing that there's more real here than people realize and it's possible he won't be around to write the next budget.

>> it seems as though he's making those noises, looking to leave, and of course we saw something interesting at the white house a couple weeks ago, saw peter orszag with a well-known television agent on the white house grounds. who knows what that was all about. >> clearly the exit strategy is being employed by peter orszag. and again, the next round of budgets will be all about the deficit. look how hard it was to just trim a little bit from nasa and what kind of political fight that brewed. it's going to be tough to replace orszag simply because it's a thankless job. >> the job wears folks out. back to wall street, aides have set president obama won't be using his trip to lower manhattan today to rip on wall street, but the people who work in the financial district wonder what reform will mean for their businesses in the long term. nbc's ron allen is on the floor of the new york stock exchange for us with that side of the story. ron, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, savannah. i think the best way to describe it is people are listening with caution and concern. business has been good this year, the market has been up, although the dow futures are

slightly down overnight p if that's an indication of how the markets are feeling about the obama speech. and positive earnings reports in the last few days fueling the feeling that things are good, although not great, but getting better. the concern is jobs and investments as well. the mayor of new york, michael bloomberg, for example, saying for the past couple days it's time to stop bashing wall street. wall street, the financial community, contributes about 40% of the city's tax revenues. that's how important it is to the city of new york. here on the floor and throughout this community, there are jobs at stake depending upon what the rules of the road are going to be going forward. of course the case of president obama is making is is that regulation reform will level the playing field. we're not so sure that everybody here buys that. we're looking at what he has to say carefully and looking at the bill even more carefully for the details of a what the future is that lies ahead for this particular industry.

chuck and savannah? >> ron allen on the floor of the new york stock exchange today and covering the speech for us when the president gets upñi there. thanks very much. news today about the ethics investigation still ongoing into former congressman eric massa and the role of the house leadership. capitol hill o'donnell is on the hill this morning. steny hoyer, the number-two democrat, did have to speak or testify. what exactly did he have to do with the ethics committee yesterday? >> reporter: so much of the work is done in secret so whenever we get a tidbit like this, it is interesting. steny hoyer was interviewed by the committee. the speaker's office says aides are available, the speaker herself is available. and why are the focused on leadership? eric massa, the former new york congressman, resigned. he is gone. the jurisdiction of this committee really has no control over him so, what they are looking at are all of the circumstances around allegations of sexual harassment or inappropriate environment in the office. so did anyone in the official ranks know, did they act properly, did they move quickly enough to report this to the ethics committee and to ring all

the appropriate bells? so, steny hoyer all along has said once he was meat aware of it, he insisted it be referred to the ethics committee. and a span of time has gone by here and what is significant now is that the committee unanimously voted there are serious questions that need to be resolved and that they will launch a full investigation. they do their work in secret. it can take a long amount of time, but we now know that there are serious questions being asked, a lot of resource being put to it, and new questions about what really went on involving the former congressman eric massa. chuck, savannah? >> kelly o'donnell, thank you. in louisiana, coast guard rescuers are still searching for 11 workers missing after that massive oil rig explosion. nbc's ron mott is at the naval air station in louisiana this morning. ron, what's the latest on the search? >> reporter: savannah, good morning to you. this search-and-rescue effort is intention fiing now that we've moved past about 34 hours since this explosion hit tuesday night.

ma what's out there on the water now are a couple of cutters. they stayed out all night looking for the missing workers. they'll be joined by another cutter. and one chopper took off this morning for that oil rig, about 52 miles offshore. we can tell you about 2:30 central time this morning a group of about 100 of the survivors made it back to shore. they were then expected to travel to about two hours to a local hotel in the new orleans area where they will be reunited with their families privately. most of the folks who were transported to hospital, there were 17 of them, have been treated and released. there were still a number, three or four, listed in critical condition, still at hospitals in louisiana and in alabama. today the effort really will be to find those 11 folks but also to try to get this fire under control or knocked out completely. it is still burning out there. they want to try to turn the source of that fuel off, but they're going to have to send a vehicle, a vessel, down under water to do so. we don't know how long that process might take. chuck, savannah, back to you guys. >> ron mott in louisiana for us

monitoring these rescue efforts. hopefully we'll have good news coming soon today. thanks. well, in europe, air travel is picking up, but there is still plenty of anger amongst those passengers and airlines hit with billions in losses. nbc's tom aspell is in london this morning. and, tom, i guess it's going to be a big fight between some of these european carriers and their home governments because they're going to be looking far little bit of a handout, aren't they? >> reporter: that's right, chuck. europe's air traffic is back to about 90% of normal but there are still restrictions and still thousands of people stranded around the world after the unprecedented air chaos of last week. the airlines have lost nearly $2 billion in revenue and some are demanding that european governments pay them compensation. airlines also want the rules change sod they don't have to cover the costs of stranded passengers, food, and accommodation. several european governments have complained that international safety regulators have been too cautious in the handling of the crisis and too quick to impose that ban on

flying. back to you guys. >> all right, tom aspell in london for us this morning. tom, thanks. coming up, president obama sets the record straight on whether the white house got a heads up about the government's fraud case against goldman sachs. >> and he's the retired navy vice admiral challenging arlen specter. joe sestak. why he says specter is making swift boat-style attacks against him. and our supreme close-up of the front-runners for the high court today. we're going to turn our focus to u.s. circuit court judge diane wood. first a look at the president's schedule. we know he goes to wall street. the only man in america that can get to new york city and back in a matter of -- from the white house to new york city to white house in four hours. [ diane lane ] when you were 14 you knew exactly where to turn to help your skin get healthy and clear. fast forward a few years... ...and now that your problem is wrinkles we still have the solution dermatologists recommend most.

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the 40th anniversary of the first earth day, what began has a grassroots effort to curb air and water pollution has turned into a worldwide ecomovement. just because i didn't get your joke at the top of the show -- >> it was still a good joke. >> if you sing it -- >> like all great moments in the environmental movement in history, it all goes back to nixon. the irony of all that. nixon and the environment. you can't see advancement without it. part of the history. moving on. the pennsylvania senate primary is heating up. congressman joe sestak making a late run at trying to derail arlen specter's bid for his first democratic nomination to the senate. >> congressman sestak joins us right now. yesterday we had senator specter on, so today we talk to congressman sestak.

and congressman, there is a brutal television ad that senator specter is running which implies that you were relieved of duty in the navy. and i know you've had some strong response on that. but explain this -- you call it swift boating, but explain -- explain this charge and allegation that's out there from senator specter and this television ad. >> absolutely. good morning, chuck and savannah. you don't get to be a three-star admiral in the navy unless you have a stellar record. in fact, arlen specter voted when i went before the senate to nominate me for my three-star position, and i'm sure he took that decision and that vote very seriously. but i also, as the head admiral at the time, said in an interview last week in the "philadelphia inquirer," he said i wanted straight talk, and that put joe sestak in the crosshairs. he challenged people that didn't want to be challenged as he tried to change the navy.

and that's what i'm doing today against arlen the specter and frankly my democratic establishment. and so arlen specter feels as though after nominating me for three stars he now has to actually have outrageous false allegations just like he did against others to the right-wing republican kind of tactics. but i have no doubt that on friday vice president biden, when he comes to pennsylvania, who actually said, i support barack obama because he actually seeks not to perfect the politics of swift boating but to end them after what they did to john kerry and my fellow max cleland is going to put an end to this. come on over here, arlen spec r specter, to the democratic side, but don't bring your false negative attacks against service members. what he said is absolutely wrong. but did i stand up and ruffle some feathers? i did. in fact, chris dodd and joe lieberman had me over to the senate when i said we don't need quite as many submarines being

built by groton, connecticut. we can put money into something else that can better find the chinese submarines. that's what i'm doing today. now he just wants to talk about negativity instead of what's needed with two wars overseas and one savage war here at home. we're not going to stand for it this time. >> congressman sessi maman sest mentioned vice president biden will be there campaigning for your opponent, arlen specter. obviously, the white house has put the weight of its influence behind senator specter. you had mentioned in the past that they had offered you a job in the administration, some kind of deal not to run. that question gets asked in press briefings at the white house all the time. >> all the time. >> they never have a direct answer. so an opportunity to ask you. were you offered a job in the administration not to run? >> and the answer, as i was asked this for the first time a month ago, even though it happened last july -- and i never brought it forward -- i answered it honestly and i'll do it again -- yes.

anything beyond that is politics. is politics. >> but this is a big accusation to the point of you have a colleague in congress, a republican member, darrell issa, calling for a special prosecutor on this issue. who in the administration sat down with you and offered you a job and what job did they offer you? >> you know, i didn't make the allegation. i was asked a question and answered it honestly. i don't know daryl isa. he's never come and talked to me and he should do what he wants. but only the right-wing republicans like him and arlen specter actually bring this forward. what i'm most harmed for i think by the broken integrity of the system is when arlen specter actually told rick santorum that if you give me your endorsement in 2004 i promise to give away my vote to george bush for whomever he nominates for the next two supreme court justice positions on the supreme court. that's not arlen's vote. and i respect his service and

what he did. he can't say he's independent and give it to george bush. that's our vote as pennsylvanians. >> you do say you were offered a job. why not give us a little more detail so people can understand what happened here? who you spoke to and what job was offered p. >> because the white house denies this allegation. >> you know as well as i do that they said they didn't think whatever occurred was problematic. and what i do know is this -- to go beyond that -- and i mean this sincerely, savannah, to your question -- people in my state have been hurt by this recession that george bush and arlen specter voted for every tax and economic policy of his gave to them. they don't care about politics. they want principle and policy to try -- >> then why did you make the -- >> i was asked the question and i thought i should answer that question honestly. and then i said after that, look, i'm getting in this because i didn't like the deal with arlen specter that the

political washington establishment made. i would never get out for a deal. i'd get out only, only, chuck, if it was the right thing to do. and the right thing to do is let's talk about policies instead of arlen specter after 30 years having nothing to talk about in this race, won't even debate me except negativity. we're not going to put up with it either as veterans or pennsylvanians, chuck and savanna. it has to change down here. it's not about politics. it's about policies that help working families. >> congressman sestak -- >> thanks for having me. >> thank you for joining us. it will be quite the wild three weeks in this primary. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. well, coming up, the air force gets ready to test its so-called secret space shuttle. and if your computer is is acting up, could your anti-virus software be to blame? >> of course it is. i hate that thing. that's why everybody buys apples. plus, how did oprah bring these two women together? former secretary of state condi

rice and california gubernatorial hope megawitman. brought together by oprah. >> first, an earth day in washingtonspeak with earth, wind, and fire playing in the background. carbon neutral. green-thinking businesses, organizations, even the vatican seek this distinction. it means they're balancing their pollution output by using an equal amount of green energy or they pay money to offset their carbon use either way they want to end up carbon neutral. today's eco washingtonspeak. >> big bills coming in next week. big energy fight coming. this is "the daily rundown." [ crowd cheering ]

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its anti-virus software, but a glitch caused computers worldwide to seize up and repeatedly reboot. that's frustrating. bristol palin has take an stand in the trial of the tennessee college student charged with hacking into her mother's personal e-mail account. the younger pay lip says she was harassed repeatedly when her cell phone number was posted online. sarah palin and her husband, tothd palin, are also expected to testify in that case. today the air force will carry out the first test launch of its new unmanned space plane. but a cloud of mystery still surrounds the mission and how long it will even be in space. the air force took over that project after nasa announced it was winding down the shuttle program. and speaking of nasa, check out some pretty amazing unprecedented images of the sun. the pictures were captured by nasa's recently launched solar telescope. they showed never-before-seen details of activity on the sun's surface including solar flares and close-up images of sun pots.

>> i don't understand. i thought we weren't supposed to stare at the sun. now you asked us to stare at the sun. >> wear sp f-3,000. >> we're all blinded. decision 2010, she's donated $50 million of her own personal fortune to her campaign, but this week, meg whitman is calling in heavyweights to raise money so she doesn't have to keep writing checks, although she'll write some. mitt romney, john mccain, and jeb bush all have events with whitman last week. and last night, former secretary of state condoleezza rice. rice has significantly weighed into both big races in california, alleges endorsing carly fiorina. last night, contindi sounded th anti-washington tune. take a listen. >> it's the private sector that is innovative and creative and risk taking. and ladies and gentlemen, i just spent eight years in washington, d.c., and washington, d.c. is a lot of things, but creative and

innovative and risk taking, not so much it's not easy to get up every day and say i really don't care if i'm not popular, i'm going to do what's right, and i think she'll do what's right. >> well, here's a fun story. how did condi rice and whitman meet? apparently it was on "oprah" in 2003. they shared a green room with vera wang. rice will fuel speculation she eventually has her own eye on a future in politics, but her near-term fallback career right now is classical pianist. rice, who has performed for the queen of england, is teaming up this sum we are the queen of soul, accompanying aretha franklin in a performance with the philadelphia orchestra. and of course tonight she will be doing what many of us will be doing, watching the first round of the nfl draft because she's got to prepare for that other fallback career, commissioner of the nfl. moving on, yesterday, thanks to the ap's glenn johnson, mitt romney doesn't live in massachusetts or michigan but has a southern california

address these days livering comfortably in la jolla. despite not ever really living full-time in utah, romney is that state's most revered politician these days. and because of that, the embattled republican senator there, bob bennett, is hoping some of the romney glow rubs off on him. romney will attend and speak on bennett's behalf at the utah republican convention in less than three weeks. utah has unique nominating system and bennett's fate will likely be decided by all of 3,500 delegates who voted in the state's convention. seven republicans are running against him and in a canvass of 1,300 of those delegates, one republican firm has bennett in a tie for second place, only 15% of delegates picked him as their first-choice candidate, 35% picked his top challenger, mike lee. bennett is pulling out all the stops spending 20 times the amount his competitors are spending and attacking lee in a

tough new tv ad. >> mike lee wants to cut and run in afghanistan. as soon as we can. he demeans our soldiers' service as nothing more than, quote, meals on wheels. >> what's unprecedented about this is this is all for an audience of 3,500 ep kahns, 70% of them who live in and around salt lake city, savannah. this was a crazy nomination, the way it works. if nobody gets 60%, the top two guys meet in the june primary in utah. bennett some think won't even finish in the top two. this lee guy could get 60% in the convention and there's no primary and the actual voters of utah won't be able to give their thumbs up ar thumbs down. 3,500 delegates.

a bizarre system and bennett may get caught in the cross fire. >> anti-income bincumbent fever. who will president obama be speaking today as he makes his case for tougher reform? john harwood joins us with more on his one-on-one interview with president obama. plus, can senator claire mccaskill get all those overly serious media types to crack a smile? her best efforts captured on camera last night. first, today's trivia question from the almanac of american politics. which senator worked for outward bound and is an accomplished mountaineer? [ tires screech ]

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scandinavia creating more flight disruptions. shifts winds with volcanic ash over norway and sweden over the night. most flights elsewhere are operating. this afternoon, a group representing sexual abuse victims is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against the vatican. the suit names pope benedict and requests the names of all known priests who are sex offenders. and in less than an hour now, president obama will leave for new york city where he is set to speak just before noon eastern time. the president will push his plan for tighter regulations on banks on wall street in the shadow of wall street. well, john harwood's cnbc washington correspondent is live in new york ahead of the president's speech and he got a preview of what the president is talking about today in a one-on-one interview yesterday. and john, i notice your first question had to do with this

allegation that somehow the s.e.c. charges against goldman was somehow part of a white house strategy. so the first thing we want to do is play the response from the president on that. >> the s.e.c. is an entirely independent agency that we have no day-to-day control over and they never discussed with us anything with respect to the charges that will be brought. so this notion that somehow there would be any attempt to interfere in independent agency is completely false. >> so what did you make of that response? and i think you asked him also about his goldman money, which, of course, the two then really wouldn't go together. either you believe they were working with the s.e.c. in cahoots or you believe they've been working with goldman in cahoots. >> right. well, look, i think it's a very serious charge for somebody to suggest that the white house would interview with a law enforcement action in the civil complaint that the s.e.c. filed against goldman. so that's very -- that's very bad stuff if it were true.

and so the president wanted to knock that down really hard. but as you suggested, chuck, he's also getting from the other side the complaint that he took all this money from goldman sachs and his former white house counsel, greg craig, is going to represent goldman now. and the president hit back pretty hard on that not being embarrassing to him or posing any particular conflict for his administration. take a listen. >> anybody who gave me money during the course of my campaign knew that i was on record pushing very strongly that we needed to reform how wall street did business. as far as my former white house counsel greg craig, he's one of the top lawyers in the country. he has a range of clients. but we have tough ethic rules that any president has ever had. >> reporter: so you see, chuck, the president knocking down that issue, as well. there aren't too many obstacles remaining before they make a deal. i think in the senate, both sides say they're coming closer

on financial regulation reform. the president is hoping to close that deal with this speech today in cooper union. >> there's no question, john, the white house has insisted the s.e.c. is an independent agency and it has no connection to the s.e.c.'s decision to file charges or the timing of those charges. on the other hand, democrats on the hill have been positively gleeful about the timing, thinking it's really giving them some momentum with their fight to get financial regulatory reform across the finish line. what's your sense of it now? how many republican senators do they think they're going to be able to pick up in the end? >> well, i think you're exactly right. democrats are happy about the goldman case. they do believe it will help them, and i think they're right. in chuck grassley's vote with blanche lincoln on derivatives yesterday and agriculture, that's one sign that the wall of opposition is beginning to crack. and i think, savannah, the likeliest thing is you'll have negotiations given the positive sides we've heard from mitch mcconnell, richard shelby, really part of the republican

leadership. mitch mcconnell is the leader and ranking member. richard shelby is an extension of the leadership. that suggests you could have a broad deal just like, savannah, in the credit card fight last year, chris dodd keeps -- every time i talk to chris dodd he reminds me that just as the bill went to the floor, it was a partisan standoff, then you had a compromise and then a whole bunch of republicans you had north of 75 votes for that bill. you could see the same scenario. but either way it appears quite likely that democrats are going to have enough votes to get past a filibuster to pass this thing. >> john harwood's, cnbc's chief washington correspondent. a great interview with the president. people should check out the entire thing. some interesting comments there, the debate about the so-called value-added tax. we encourage folks to see the whole thing. let's do our trivia. an earth day theme. which senator worked for outward bound and has scaled the north face of mt. everest? >> it's democratic senator mark

udall and of course udall has an arizona connection. why do we care about an arizona connection today? we have a very special live audience today. it's savanis a vasavannah's mom today, so we're on our best behavior. our jokes are above board for today. treasury secretary tim geithner says he's confident financial reform will happen during a live interview on "morning joe," getting a push back on criticism that the president's plan doesn't prevent another collapse of the financial system. >> if this was a weak package, if it was an empty bill, it had no teeth, if p it had huge carveouts that would protect firms, their existing businesses, and these firms would not be spending millions of dollars fighting it, it wouldn't have taken us 15 months to get to this position. if it was so generous, the financial industry, this would have been done a year ago in a heartbeat and it would have been easy. >> last night here in d.c. was

the annual congressional dinner to raise money for the washington press club foundation. so in the name of charity, senator claire mccaskill took on the tough job of trying to make journalists and her colleagues laugh. >> the newly minted unmavericky john mccain couldn't be here tonight. he has been detained at the arizona border while lou dobbs checks his papers. eric massa said he would have loved to have been here. in fact, he said he would have been tickled to be here. sarah palin was here earlier but she left halfway before it was done. >> well, there you go. >> humor. >> washington humor. we'll have washingtonspeak and there's washington humor for you. coming up, it's a supreme close-up of the prospective supreme court nominees. what would circuit court judge and mother of three diane wood add to the high bench? >> we'll ask david gossett, who clerked for judge wood. but first, america, we have to

apologize. a clerical error means we have to tell you, regrettably, today's white house soup of the day is chicken spinach. viewers of this program would notice this is -- >> this is supposedly a repeat. unfortunately our intrepid soup team somehow missed that tuesday's soup was miso, a new soup for them. we were a day off with our reporting. so it was miso on tuesday. >> today. >> today is chicken spinach. and i'm blanking on what it actually was yesterday. but there you go. >> whatever. >> today it's chicken spinach. and again, i love miso spinach. >> america, feel confident that today's soup is correct. >> this will not happen again. even deep throat misled woodstain once in a while during watergate. >> it wasn't deep rock. >> you're watching "the daily rundown."

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well, it's a daily "flashback." ten years ago today, armed immigration agents took elian gonzalez from the miami home of his rl tifs to reunite him with his father in cuba. by the way, here's what he looks like today. unbelievable. he's grown up, still living in cuba. i tell you, i was in havana during that time, and i remember seeing these rallieser elian. that was a very tense period for the state of florida and in the country, cuba just one of those amazing stories you can't believe became such a huge national issue, and it was. little segue to our next story about the supreme court, greg craig, the former white house counsel who shepherded the last fight, represented elian gonzalez's father way back then. let's stick with the supreme court. president obama insists his choice to fill the supreme court vacancy must protect individual rights, particularly those of women. >> he said that just yesterday,

but the white house said it wasn't a litmus test. it is one of the few clues he's dropped on narrowing his search. the majority of those on short list are women. we'll continue with what we've been calling our supreme close-up, an examination of the front runners. today, judge diane wood. wood is a transplanted texan, born in new jersey. she got her law degree from the university of texas. >> they don't grow them ivy down there. >> no, not an ivy leaguer. we'll talk about that. she followed it with a stint clerking for supreme court justice harry blackman. while raising three children, wood spent time at the state department and the department of justice before being appointed to chicago's seventh circuit court of appeals 15 years ago. david gossett clerked for judge wood in the late '90s, has worked for the justice department and argued multiple cases before the supreme court, a supreme court litigator based here in washington. >> thank you. >> okay. so we know you might be a little biased because you clerked for judge wood, but make the best case for judge wood. why do you think the president has her again on his short list?

>> well, i think that judge wood would be a phenomenal choice for the president for a couple of reasons. first of all, she has a demonstrated ability to create consensus across political -- across the political spectrum. the seventh circuit where she's currently a judge is a notoriously right-leaning court, yet she has over her 15 years on is that bench time and again shown that she can bring conservatives around her position and to forge consensus opinions that get things done. and of course that's what justice stevens is so famous for being good at and i think judge wood would be fabulous at that also. >> the quote, unquote, case against judge wood, i've been hearing particularly from capitol hill, is twofold, one, they don't have a stomach for a fight on abortion and they feel like that because some of her opinions and some of her writings that abortion inevitably would become an oversized part of this debate. and the second is simply her age. she'd be 50. she's 59 now. i think it's always uncomfortable to say is somebody

too old for the supreme court? but this argument that conservatives have been appointing folks that were going to be there for 40 years or in their 40s, should the president be appointing somebody younger? >> if the president appoints judge wood, she'll be there for a very long time. she's in perfect health. her mom is over 90 and doing great, too. and justice ginsburg was 60 when she was appointed to the bench. the important thing is that unlike some of the important people who have been bandied about, all of whom i'm sure would be great, judge wood would be able to hit the ground running from day one. she's been an active federal judge for 15 years and over that time what she's done is shown she can do exactly what she'd need to do on the supreme court and try to create a coalition of five. i mean, the supreme court's all about -- >> counting -- >> one. >> kennedy. >> at this point. >> at this point. probably going to buy a house next to kennedy. why not just hire anthony

kennedy's neighbor? >> justice scalia's kids used to baby sit for her. >> judge poser in and judge easterbrooks not exactly shrinking violets on the seventh circuit and she's gone toe to toe with them. what about the abortion issue chuck raises? i think that is the issue that has some saying perhaps the president will sidestep that fight. interest groups said from the moment justice announced his retirement, a pick for judge wood is to restart the abortion wars. >> i think that's just wrong. i know the interest groups are saying that, but as rahm emanuel said earlier this week, whoever the president picks there's going to be a fight. but -- >> what are the controversial writings or cases? >> it's very little. it really is a creation. let's start with what you said before, which is that the president has said he's not setting a litmus test here, but he wants to choose someone who understands and supports women's rights. judge wood's decisions on this issue have been very much in the mainstream of american jurisprudence. and, in fact, there's a front-page story in "the new

york times" today about judge wood in which judge poser in who's certainly no liberal said that he agreed with her in some of the decisions that have been bandied about. what do those decisions say? the big one people have focused on isn't really about abortion. it was about some protests at abortion clinics and whether or not some violent behavior in those protests crossed the line and was criminalized under the federal rico statute. it really had nothing to do with abortion at all. >> it was the setting of the protest. >> the setting of the protest was an abortion clinic and she was following the supreme court's precedents at the time. yes, that was reversed but there was nothing out in the open. >> one of the reasons we're always told don't assume she's not a front-runner is this personal relationship she has with the president. tell us quickly about this personal relationship. relation. >> judge wood, before going on the bench, was a professor at the university of chicago law school. she was one of the first women to teach there. she was also one of the first

women to clerk on the supreme court. and president obama was a lector at the law school at the same time. she's known the president for a long time. i think that certainly can't hurt her. one other thing i'd want tocy about that background, she did all of these things while also raising three kids. she's had just this extraordinary career over her life span. >> we don't care a lot about moms on the supreme court. >> we don't, and it's interesting although it wasn't at the forefront, they did like that judge sotomayor had a personal story. so i assume you think that's one side of judge wood and the fact sha she that she's been an ivy leaguer, which other people certainly think it's high time to get some of them on the supreme court. >> why the longhorns? just kidding. >> david gosset, we really appreciate your perspective. thank you. >> my pleasure. it was a pleasure to be here. welcome coming up,

high-flying hijinks in college baseball. the never-before-seen piece of hollywood history. >> coming up. by the way, follow us anytime on twitter. as you know we tweet during the show. a lot of times we retweet each other. >> it's true. @chucktodd has significantly more followers than i do. so help me catch up. if you missed the show, you know you can watch it on dailyrundown@msnbc.com. >> the podcast is coming. you've heard about software problems today. this is "the daily rundown." uld! the abdomen-ator dr. bob bergowitz! yeah, woo! [ announcer ] she's the queen of clean! the 2009 surgeon of the year, dr. nancy mendelsohn! [ male announcer ] doctors and nurses are true heroes. at ge, we're working to give them the innovation, fresh thinking, and advanced technology they need to keep bringing better health to more people.

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before we go, let's dip our toes in "the shallow end." >> this is cool. >> it's neat. it's an old piece that shows ronald reagan and james dean sharing a scene back in 1954 on, what else, the general electric theater.

>> go, team. >> go, team. >> hit me. why don't you hit me? >> because if i start it, i don't think i would stop. >> ooh. >> ooh, dramatic. that episode aired only one time on television. james dean died a year later. and reagan, of course, went on to a different kind of career. >> so i've heard. football junkies, for the first time ever the nfl draft will be held in primetime broadcast live right next to 30 rock. 2008 heisman trophy winner sam bradford is projected as the number one pick. that would send him to the 1-15 st. louis rams. another new change, they're stretching out the draft over threexd days. it won't end until saturday. tonight is the first round. then you've got two rounds on friday and then the rest of the draft, i missed the old. i wish they would go to 17 rounds again. take a look at this play. they're already calling it the fordham flip. brian kownacki goes up and over

the catcher, the defense can't believe it, but the run counts because he didn't get tagged. where did he get the idea? brian says he saw a play like it in the movie "major league 2." i have to say, he may be, like, the second person ever to see "major league 2." >> yeah. >> "major league 2," as big of a disappointment and the only thing worse was "major league 3." "major league," a great baseball movie. it's a pretty cool play. >> that's it for us. coming up next, monica novotny, the president's speech on wall street. coverage starts at 11:30 with chris matthews and tamron hall. >> then "andrea mitchell reports" for all the post-game on the speech. take us with you on the road. >> we're following you. >> sirius and xm radio right now, sirius 90, xm 120. thanks for watching and listening. and by the way, don't text and drive. >> don't do that. >> stop it. get off the blackberry. see you tomorrow. >> don't do it.

here's your "business travel forecast" for this thursday. i'm meteorologist bill karins. eastern half just fine, the western half, that's where the stormy weather is. boston's the exception. a cold front could bring a slight chance of a shower or storm this afternoon. but all the big cities from new york to d.c. southwards into atlanta, just fine. out west, showers and storms will plague areas like denver. thanks for joining us.